Elemental Dungeons

[Lord_Jadem]

Elemental Dungeons

To begin, the idea for this came in response to a note by the Great and Mighty Zanzarino regarding future possibilities and some of the things implemented in Arena.  I understand the ideas represented here may be well beyond the scope of anything intended for this game, but is just one of those heart's desires you always hear about.

The general idea is to create a new game mode where players send a party of their decks into dungeons for treasure and adventure.  The player would create a party made up of seperate decks.  Each deck would represent a different member of the party and be customizable.  The party then goes into the dungeon which may or may not be graphically represented, which is not important to the idea.  The dungeons would have 6 levels corresponding to the levels on the Main Menu (level 0 - False Gods).  Size varying with level.  Once in the dungeon the party player would make decisions which way to go.  There would be chance of random encounter at each movement.

The first part of this proposal is to setup a new Adventurer rank and level independant of existing score.  This would let everyone come into the game on an even playing field without causing any disruption with existig score or Arena rank.  Adventurer experience would be gained only in Dungeon game mode and would be gained similarly to existing score with exceptions that will be mentioned later.  I would use the same levels grades as existing as well.  While I had thought of restricting cards based on level, that would seem to hinder players who have spent so much time gathering and upgrading cards that I decided to skip it.  With each increase in Adventurer level come benefits such as Maneuver points and Skill points.  Maneuver points would be unique to Dungeon mode while Skill points would be similar and incorporating those in Arena mode.  Both would be equal to Adventure Level.

The first step in starting an adventure is to create a party of adventurers.  Each player can have up to a certain number of decks (party members) based on level (see Table 1).  Each deck would be constructed with the full skill points of the player and spending them on skills in table 2.  The party would be created in order of battle. That order determines order of deck play during encounters.  Each party member can equip up to 1permanent loot item, which will be discussed later.  Adventurer's skills and deck cannot be changed once dungeon entered.  Equipped items can be changed throughout.

Table 1
Level     Number of party members
1-10   2
11-25   3
26-50   4
51-75   5
76-100   6

Table 2
Skill            Points
+1 draw   (max 1)            20   
5hp               1
+1 mark (max 2)            10
Initiative               10
5hp regeneration* (max 3)         10
Mulligan (max 1)            10
Lockpicking (+5%)  (max 5)         1
Sense chests (counts chests on level)      2
+1 copy of card allowed (beyond normal 6)   5

* - This form of regeneration would appear in same way as the healing of Purify so can be degraded by poison.

Now the adventure begins.  System rolls up random level 1 dungeon and party finds themself in it.  Each dungeon level has 1 portal to next level (except bottom level), 1 boss and at least 1 treasure chest. The portal and 1 level chest reachable only after defeating Boss. More treasure chests on deeper levels.  Player chooses North, East, South or West to go. 

Everytime party changes rooms there is a random (1 in 4?) chance for event.  Usually this would be encounter with monster deck (of same level as dungeon level), but could be treasure or ambush (see Table 3).  Each encounter (except ambush) would start off with first active party member playing the monster deck. If player loses, that adventurer is KO'd and play begins with next deck in line.  If all decks are KO'd adventure ends and all loot aside from standard cards won through spins are lost.An ambush is where a randomly chosen adventurer is attacked instead of the first adventurer deck.  The order change caused by ambush is for this encounter only. If encounter is won normal xp/electrum/spins apply.

Table 3
65% Encounters monster
10% Encounter group*
10% Finds treasure
10% Ambushed
5% Finds chest

If Encounter group rolled there are 2-5 monsters in room.  They are huddled around fire near a chest.  They do not notice party and party can either attack or leave.  If attacking group battle is against entire group, 1 at a time until one party destroyed or player's party flees.  If party wins chest is discovered.  If party leaves room without defeating group, they will not be there if party returns to the room.

In addition to encounters, the party has Maneuver points it can spend.  1 point to use found portal to go deeper into dungeon.  1pt to attempt to flee encounter, which cannot be done during actual duel.  When encounter starts player will have chance to try to flee (1pt) or to swap one deck for another (2pts). Flee chance percentage would be 50% +1%/5 Adventurer level.  If fleeing fails, duel begins. These actions are also available after each duel if player loses provided there is at least 1 more adventurer left to flee.  At any time other than during an encounter the party can exit dungeon at no cost.  If party has found a chest it must first unlock it (1pt).  Chance of success = 50% +1%/5 Adventurer level for random chest and 25% +1%/5 Adventurer level for a level chest.  Maneuvers and cost on Table 4.

Table 4
Maneuver         Cost
Go down to next level   1
Exit dungeon      0
Attempt to flee encounter   1
Swap party member   (duel)   2
Unlock chest      1
Locate stairs      1
Revive member      5
Change order      2
Sense Chest (need skill)   1

Treasure chests are primary reason to go into dungeons of course.  Each treasure chest has 1-5 card spins of random deck of appropriate level.  Of course there are also varying amounts of electrum as well as a chance for a new type of loot.  This would be new items that can be used only in Dungeon mode.  Lots of possibilites available.   Unless noted otherwise these can be used after encounter but before duel and last for 1 duel only.

Table 5
Consumable
Bracelet of Power       +1 mark
Amulet of Regneration    5 regeneration pts
Scroll of Initiative      Automatically gets the 1st play
Feather of the Phoenix   50% chance to revive 1 party member during encounter, deck goes to end of battle order.  Can use          only once per level of dungeon
Leather Armor      +25 starting HP
Chain Mail         +50 starting HP
Plate Mail         +75 starting HP
Weapon         Starts play with selected non-rare weapon equipped
Shield Bracelet      Starts play with card Shield in play.
Boots of Quickness      +10% chance when attempting to flee
Lockpicks      +10% chance when trying to unlock chest
Fastdraw Ring      25% chance to start play with random weapon in deck already equipped
Shield Ring      25% chance to start play with random shield in deck already equipped
Quantum Belt      Starts with 5 quanta of same element as mark
Necklace of Speed      75% chance to play first
Belt of the Beastmaster   Starts play with random pet (a la Oracle)
Glasses of Seeing      25% chance to see opponents starting hand (precognition)
Ring of Chance      Player has option to reshuffle opening hand
Cap of Alertness      Ambushes do not change party order if any party member has this equipped

Again these are just a few of the possibilities possibilities and all would be fairly rare, the better ones being even more so.  May need to break those down into further rarity tiers.

As mentioned before each level has a boss, which would have double the normal spins as a standard deck for that level.  The Boss also has enhanced abiliities.  Each Boss gets 1 roll/level on Table 7.  Please note this is in addition to normal,  so FG rolling increased hp twice, Regen, draw and mark twice would have 250hp, regeneration, 3 card draw and Mark *5 total.

Table 7
25% more hp
Regeneration 5hp/turn
Increased draw
Increased mark
Always goes first (reroll if already has)

The rewards for beating a boss would be higher than beating standard deck.  Increased spins, experience, electrum and a chance to win loot.  As noted before, each level has a boss guarding a level chest and the portal to next level.  The FG Boss being much more powerful than standard FGs I think would require an exceptional reward.  Possibilities such as the spin after 3 in a row on Arena Platinum and maybe even possibility of Mark or Nymph come to mind.  Of course perhaps very special loot cards etc.


Multiplayer Dungeons could also be interesting.  Say no more than 4 players per party. The highest level player (or highest experience points if tie) would determine moves and that players Manuevor points would be the party's manuevor points.  Would be able to cede leadership to other member if desired.  This would not change Manuever points of party.  I expect communication would be done through Elements Chat, hopefully PM.  Would be able to either enter a waiting room for autoparty function or Invite/Join other. Each encounter starts with random player.  The players not active in dual automatically in watch mode.  Active player if wins duel gets normal victory rewards, including spin. Inactive members gets even share of 50% of rewards ( so if 90 electrum won on a 4 member party, active player gets 90 electrum, and the other 3 get 30) and if card won, each inactive player gets 50%/party chance of gettting card as well.  I thought of requiring all party members to be within x levels of each other but maybe not.  Certainly an autoparty option which would group players from waiting pool would try to do by level, but if someone wants to create party of friends should be up to them.  If someone has to leave, party can either continue on, invite others to join or open slot up to autoparty queue.


Ok.  Those are my initial thoughts on this, what little there was of it.

Some friends and I had started doing a variation of this with a similar real world ccg.  1 dungeon master playing the various 'monster decks' as they were randomly encountered and the 3 other players playing their starter deck.  Winning each battle provided random cards to customize with in addition to the treasure chest items which would have more cards plus chance at the out-of-ccg loot.  Over time we built up 'hireling' decks to accompany us and the DM (rotating) had to start building boss decks kind of like FG/Arena here: double draw, increased life or increased hand size as well as certain other abilites such as regeneration.  It all got very complicated after awhile but completely addicting.  I lost so many hours to that game.   Now I feel tempted to try to put together a new group.

I am now half hoping Zanz doesn't read this in fear of him banning me from game/forum entirely just to keep me the hell away from him.  8)

I had originally posted part of this under a different thread but decided to remove it as I thought there was enough content to start a new thread.  The thread it was inspired by was:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,29880.0.html

[ZephyrPhantom]

This idea is long, but it seems pretty interesting!

I think the only problems is that this would take a while to code and that Multiplayer Dungeons would be difficult for the server the handle (2-player games are pretty unsteady to begin with).

We probably won't be seeing this in the immediate future of the game, but if Zanz ever manages to get a lot of time this idea would be something fun to see. (It also gives Elements a "Just one more level" mode to it, which is a nice change of pace from the usual grindyness).

[dragonsdemesne]

This sounds quite interesting; I think it has promise, or something similar, anyway.  It reminds me a lot of Shandalar, which was part of Microprose's Magic: The Gathering adaptation.  In that game, you'd wander around with your deck and bump into enemies out in the world, and duel them.  You could find things like +hp, pets, stores, and so on.  Dunno if that's where you got the idea, but there might be some ideas you can 'borrow' from that (or should I say "Improved Steal")

[Lord_Jadem]

Magic the Gathering was the CCG that we first started doing this with, but I am not familiar with adaptation you mention.  We also played a game of MtG Risk where each attempt to take land was a Duel.  The number of armies on each country affected allowed cards etc in the decks that could used.  I don't have all the rules any more, but small armies meant smaller cost cards, no Uniques/Legends etc.

As to the possibility of implementing this, I know it is a long shot.  I am not anything but the most basic coder so would really have no idea of the complexity of it all, so I am not exactly demanding it.   Just think of it as my Santa list.  I have been a good boy this year...

As to multiplayer, I am sure you are right.  After posting this I have been thinking more along looking into a way to convert to an event type of thing... Can't really do skills, but can have someone run Dungeon Crawls and successes might allow progress on some sort of leaderboard.  Encounter's would be DM dueling players with premade decks.  Skills not possible in this way.  Perhaps Level 1 player would have to build deck with 0 rare/upgraded cards.  Once 30 card deck built, no other cards can be used unless spun for or rolled as loot.  Maybe only 1 element allowed.  More 'character' levels allows additional elements and allows rare cards to be used.  Possible can only use rares rolled as loot.  In this way I suppose can be played just by a group of random players unofficially.  Of course being an event would allow actual prizes to be won.  I will have to read up more about how events work and think more about and to do this without an actually mod to game.

The only difficulty on a non-even/non-mod would be a time to find a time when multiple people willing to spend the time can all be online together.  This is more difficult in a world-wide community than a handful of high school kids getting together after school.   Well, getting people together and hammering out rules and drawing up loot tables, which would not be exceedingly difficult.  I think in Excel format anyway.

Thanks for your feedbacks.

[Post]

There is so much potential and thought put into this....I love it!

Couple thoughts...

I feel it would be ok to limit cards in some ways. At the very least, limiting upgraded cards for earlier levels would seem to make a lot of sense. And, while not having access to your card collection could be annoying in some ways, I'm thinking that annoyance would be outweighed by the gratification of 'adventuring' and looting, and building up a second collection could add to the replayability of the game (as long as the ridiculously stingy reward system currently in the core game is loosened).

I don't believe the spin system should be involved in this game mode, as it isn't in line with the feel of it. Winning a battle would result in electrum and perhaps a chance at 0-2 random cards from the deck you defeated (essentially the same as a spin, but with a more appropriate aesthetic feel). Chests would provide X random cards/dungeon-items, with the # and value increased with the difficulty of the dungeon. Should you be 'killed', loot you have found would be kept, but you would lose X cards out of that loot and your deck, and a certain percentage of the electrum. Were this to be the case, I would also suggest an initial cost (buying supplies) in entering the dungeon, or perhaps those costs would be translated into buying cards for the dungeon-set.

The chances to open a chest seem far too low early on, and far too high later in the game. I like the idea of making the chest an event, and not just receiving loot. Perhaps, instead, if the chest is locked, you can decide to force it open, but doing so could result in a random encounter (the noise alerts nearby monsters) after which you would get the loot. I doubt this is the best solution, but the unlocking design is one of the few things I don't like at this moment.

I absolutely love all of the dungeon-specific items and skills. I think they further support the idea of a dungeon specific card collection.

I have some thoughts on the multiplayer dungeons, but I think it'd be wise to focus on the single-player for now, and treat the multiplayer as a 'phase 2' sort of deal.

[Lord_Jadem]

First, a quick correction.  I intended it to be easier to open random chest than level chest and I reversed them.  Modified in original post.

I can see changing from spins to just found cards.  Makes sense.

As to party wiping, the only thing I had intended to be lost were cards (loot) from chest and any electrum gained that way.  All points/electrum and cards won through standard spin would be kept.

I did actually think about the cost of dungeon preparation.  Set fee as in any standard game in Elements, plus buying an additional type of card for the dungeon crawl - consumables.  Items with 1 time effects.  I even typed up a couple dozen.  I just thought maybe that would be going to far for the original post. XD

At this point the whole thing seems to ambitous for any near future implementation if ever, so the non-programmed Multiplayer Dungeon Crawl event would be the most likely thing to see the light of day.

Although if anyone gets a group together to play the non-sanctioned form I would love an invite.

[Rutarete]

This is almost exactly like Heart of the Maelstrom (old SNES game). Party is in a maze, leveling up, special equipments and items, etc. (yes this sounds generic but to me it's a very similar system) Sounds fun

[Bruciato]

I read half of the initial post but I found it a bit cconfusing.. But I like the name elemental dungeons, reminds me of the best pc card game ever made: Magic Shandralaar (or whatever it was called).